Review by Kevin Murphy
After the next line, stop reading this review. Think back to the summer before you left home. Whether it was for college or military, for adventure or escape, for better or worse, stop reading and remember.
Now that you’re back, what did you see? Did your memory flood with rich images and defined sequences, or were the events disjointed, shuttering past as if looking out the window of a subway car? For Dito Montiel, the director of “A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints,” the images are both sequenced and disjointed. They shutter past and then stop, staring at him plain in the eye. They linger long enough to become new memories. Memories of memories juxtaposed against one another. There’s enough to write a memoir. There’s enough to make a film. And that’s just what he’s done.
Moments of crises define our lives. We tremble when they await us, grow tense as they’re upon us, and marvel when we’ve left them behind. When a film is made depicting such crises, it’s almost imperative to head to the theater, identify with the protagonist, and cringe, struggle and rejoice as his metamorphoses occurs. The experience is heightened when commanded by an ambitious director and powerful cast; it resonates deeper as the setting is presented in all its terrible beauty; it remains alive long after complete, leaving you with memories to revile and behold.
Fifteen years removed from Queens, Dito Montiel (Robert Downey Jr.) is living in L.A. He’s written a memoir about his life growing up in Queens and is enjoying some recognition and success. But back home his irascible father (Chazz Palminteri) is sick. Hounded by friends and his mother (Dianne West), Dito returns to Queens. One half of the movie unfolds as young Dito (Shia LaBeouf) balances hovering violence and developing love, familial dysfunction and troubled friends. His buddies have black eyes and the girls suck on popsicles. His father doles sage quips while tinkering with a typewriter at the kitchen table and then fires into a rage about Dito’s leaving Queens. Here, in the summer heat and urban chaos of the 80’s, fine performances by each of the actors make a stressful situation real and tolerable.
The other half of the movie follows the older Dito (Downey Jr.) as he moves from one uncomfortable encounter to the next. Fifteen years have passed, and now he’s back home, talking with his friend Nerf, fixing his relationship with his old girlfriend Laurie (Rosario Dawson), and trying to get his frail father into the hospital. Dito’s old best friend, Antonio (Channing Tatum), is no longer around, but his ghost remains, and Dito’s loyalty to him serves as the motivation he will need to patch the holes in his past. Dito has aged over the years, but he is still very much the person he was when he left, and he has yet to face the problems from which he once ran. The questions here ask what happens when a man leaves his world behind. What happens to the people, the places, and how do they react? Is Dito wrong for leaving, or did he have to take care of himself? Fortunately, judgments aren’t issued. And we are left to appreciate Downey Jr.’s caricatured and understated performance, Rosario Dawson’s brief but jolting scenes, and a director whose dedication to his vision is expressed through pain and struggle and love.
This film is a cumbersome treasure. Montiel sprinkles scenes with quiet, hurried voice-overs. He lifts fragments from future scenes and splices them into current ones. He accompanies dialogue with text -an intriguing technique that slows and emphasizes phrases- and anticipates action with a kind of backwards crescendo, the music and the tempo and the camera work acting as the antithesis of what’s about to happen. The overall feeling is like being strapped to a bed in an overexcited state. But soon the medicine kicks in and you calm down. You take a look around, you get used to your surroundings, and while you may never actually like where you are, or feel good about it, you accept your reality and exist.
As it is when reviewing the past, flashes of greatness prevail over failures. Happiness surmounts depression, relationships reward, dreams are realized, problems resolved, but along with this perception comes the understanding that memories are shaped by our interpretation of them. “A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints” knows this. It revels in this. It takes the interpretations of one man and incorporates hundreds of other interpretations. It stops time and rearranges it. It bleeds two worlds together. It fights numerous battles and loses to tell the tale. It’s a shameful and bitter treatment of life. It’s loud, obnoxious, irksome, and bold. But it’s also an admirable exploration and a fascinating portrait of the faces that never go away. It’s quiet and honest, proof that you can go home again. Just be ready for the ones you left behind.
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